The Conspiracy Against Arsenal

By Our Correspondent
for Arsenal New Today

Published: September 2, 2009

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Arsenal suffered their first competitive defeat of the 20090/10 campaign when they lost 1-2 against Manchester United at Old Trafford on August 29. The defeat was not so much of a problem as the manner of it. Arsenal were the better team throughout the game and should have taken at least a point out of it. What was unacceptable,however, was the apparent bias of referee Mike Dean towards the hosts. Six Arsenal players were booked compared to just 3 of United when the United players committed as many, if not more, fouls as the Arsenal players. Mike Dean booked Alexander Song early in the game for a fair challenge. However, he refused to even verbally caution Darren Fletcher when he took out Denilson and Diaby again and again. Song committed 3 fouls and got yellow carded, while Fletcher committed 6 fouls and he wasn’t cautioned. (In of the two league matches Fletcher has played this season, he has committed 10 fouls, 5th on the list of season’s top 10 foulers). Not only did the referee not book Fletcher, he refused to award Arsenal a penalty when Fletcher took out Arshavin inside the United penalty box. Dean was a mere 10 yards away from the spot. Neither Arshavin nor Fletcher had their back towards the referee and there was no way he could have missed the fact that Arshavin transferred the ball from his left foot to his right before Fletcher came sliding in and took his legs from underneath him.

Fletcher takes out Arshavin, yet goes unpunished

On the other hand, Dean was quick to award United a penalty when Almunia was adjudged to have brought Rooney down inside the box. Rooney had his back towards Dean, who was further out and couldn’t have possibly seen the incident clearly. However, he was quick to point to the spot and didn’t even bother to consult with the linesman. As is seen in the picture below, Rooney was already going down before he came into contact with Almunia.

Rooney dragging his back leg and going down before contact with the keeper

Had it not been an own goal, Mike Dean would have thought of some other way of ensuring that his master Sir Alex Ferguson’s team took all three points. Not only did he award the dubious penalty, he also sent Arsene Wenger to the stands with just a minute or two left to be played. That situation could easily have been avoided. Arsenal had made their three substitutions. With just seconds left, there was no way Wenger could have influenced the game had he remained in the dugout. But Mike Dean thought otherwise and made sure that Wenger was humiliated.

Injustice has been meted out to Arsenal for a long time now. The referees, both the domestic and European associations, the media – everybody has had a go at the club, its players and the manager at one point or the other.

Why is it that Arsenal are singled out every time? I am reminded of Arsenal’s Champions League campaign two seasons back. While playing Milan away in San Siro, Alex Hleb was fouled right inside the box. The referee, who was standing close by, booked Hleb for diving !

The same competition, Ryan Babel went down very easily inside the Arsenal box. Result – penalty. Needless to say that Arsenal were knocked out of that season’s competition.

The UEFA also seems to have problems with Arsenal. Michel Platini, for some strange reason, has never been an admirer of Arsene Wenger. Platini has never spoken in favour of the club or the manager. Time and again he has accused Arsenal of poaching young talents from other clubs. But the UEFA president never opens his mouth when clubs like Real Madrid and Barcelona openly use the Spanish press to unsettle Arsenal’s players. He never said a word when Barcelona made it clear that they were after Cesc Fabregas, knowing quite well that he had a long-term contract in place with the Gunners.

Platini also openly criticised Wenger’s call for the introduction of video technology in the game. He would rather see his crazy five referee per game system being implemented, even though that system is inferior to goal line video technology. Back in September 2008, when asked to comment on Wenger’s call for introduction of video technology, Platini had this to say:

“I like to talk about football, him (Wenger) about business. We must stop with Wenger and all that. It would make me happy that Arsene Wenger never sees it.” Citing the example of Romanian club CFR Cluj’s victory over AS Roma, he said, “That is what makes football so great. It is what people like Wenger do not want, little clubs beating the big clubs, because they want their business.”

Going by those comments, one would think that under Michel Platini, the UEFA was totally against video technology. However, it is the same UEFA which decided to hand a two-match ban on Eduardo da Silva for allegedly trying to deceive the referee by diving.

In doing so, UEFA contradicted FIFA’s rule that says that the decision given by a referee in a match would remain final and no changes to it would be made later. Also, the UEFA needs to explain how a yellow card offence can be turned into a two-match ban by a disciplinary committee.

Secondly, how did the UEFA committee come to the conclusion that Eduardo dived, when the video footage shows there was actually contact between the Celtic keeper and the Arsenal striker?

Thirdly, if the UEFA has decided to punish Eduardo, will Michel Platini take retrospective action against Ryan Babbel for diving in the Champions League quarter finals against Arsenal? Would he be willing to have his men analyse every single minute of every single match played?

That won’t happen because the issue here is not stamping out diving or cheating. Had that been the case, video technology would have been incorporated in the game long time back. The agenda here is to pull down Arsenal by whatever means necessary.

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The Conspiracy Against Arsenal

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